Femme Feral

As a Gen X woman whose day job is as one of a few women on a big tech team, I immediately connected with Ellie in Femme Feral by Sam Beckbessinger.

Our changing bodies being compared to lycanthropy isn't new, but there is still something satisfying about vicariously experiencing a release of the frustration and rage - and in a meta way through the wellness app being developed at Ellie's company.

So, the themes, some of the humor, the relatability of the characters were appealing to me, but I wish I'd known these two things before I chose to read it.

1. A major plot point revolves around specific details of multiple cat and small pets' deaths

2. As she writes in her author's note, Beckbessinger chose to use Chat GPT to write portions of the novel which involved AI generated text

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for this ARC for my unbiased review.